EDUCATION: Personal touch needed to prepare students, speaker says

Retired school administrator Rich Smith, keynote speaker at Riverside County Office of Education's College Readiness for All Conference, tells educators how important it is for them to know their students and let their students know they care about their learning. Sanger is retired deputy superintendent of Sanger Unified School District.

To prepare students for college educators must get to know students and let them know they care, a speaker told a conference of educators on Thursday, April 11.

âMentorship is a necessity,â keynote speaker Rich Smith told the Riverside County Office of Educationâs College Readiness for All conference. Smith is a retired deputy superintendent of Sanger Unified School District in an impoverished area of Californiaâs Central Valley with demographics similar to some Inland districts.

Sanger was one of the first districts in California to undergo federal sanctions in 2004 for not meeting goals for poor and minority students under No Child Left Behind. In 2012, Sanger was recognized by Education Trust â" West for high graduation and college preparation rates for low-income and black and Hispanic students.

The conference at Riverside City College attracted 148 school district administrators, principals, counselors and teachers from elementary to high school levels from Riverside and San Bernardino counties, organizers said.

Educators at the conference said the skills that students need to succeed in college also will be useful in their careers even if they donât go to college.

âWe donât think a 13-year-old should decide if he wants to go to college or not,â said conference organizer Michael Horton, AVID administrator at the Riverside County Office of Education. âWe want to keep the doors open.â

Educators also have to believe that all students can be prepared for college and students have to believe they can succeed, Riverside County Superintendent Kenneth M. Young said as he prepared to introduce Smith.

Smith also challenged educators to help their students understand why education is important.

Many Inland students donât see the relevance of their education to their future, Young said.

What educators thought of as college preparation in the past isnât really preparing students, he said.

Students not only need to score in proficient ranges on the stateâs standardized tests, but in the advanced range to succeed when they get to college or the workforce, Young said. The stateâs curriculum requirements donât match collegeâs expectations for new students, he said.

Fortunately, he said, new academic standards called Common Core and standardized tests that California will give in 2014-15, will solve much of that mismatch.

âWe canât solve all of it in high school,â Young said. âIt starts in kindergarten.â

Follow Dayna Straehley on Twitter: @dstraehley_PE and watch for her posts on the Inland Schools blog: http://blog.pe.com/schools/

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